


Logistics and Long Roads

by alittlefellowinawideworld



Category: Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency (TV 2016)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-20
Updated: 2017-05-20
Packaged: 2018-11-03 00:49:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,743
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10956243
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alittlefellowinawideworld/pseuds/alittlefellowinawideworld
Summary: Amanda hadn't stopped to consider the logistics of life in a van with 4 rambling, anarchist, emotion vampires on the run from the law. But the reality of the situation generated more questions than answers, anyway.





	Logistics and Long Roads

**Author's Note:**

> My first completed bit of writing! Written as part of the 2017 DGHDA Beginner Bang. (Thanks for Lydia and all of the mods who put this together.) Please be kind, I welcome feedback or suggestions. I felt like there wasn't enough love for Amanda. 
> 
> There was art done by the lovely trailsofpaper on tumblr (trails of paper/sanwall on ao3). Thanks for all of your patience and wonderful help. 
> 
> Links to their art here: http://trailsofpaper.tumblr.com/post/160886729683/my-contribution-to-the-dghdabigbang-dirk-gentlys
> 
> I really love the flowers!!!

*******************************************************  
Question #1: What the hell was she going to tell people?  
*******************************************************

"Mandy, honey, I just don't think I understand."

For the 3rd time this conversation Amanda hoped no one could hear her teeth grinding on the other end of the phone. She knocked the back of her head against the battered van and sighed, glancing toward the store where the boys were paying for gas and supplies. Well, she hoped they were paying for them. Do they even have money? Either way, not done yet. She turned back to the phone. 

"I don't know how else to say it, Mom. I'm going away for a bit. With friends. It's not a big deal."

She willed the hopeful calm in her voice to travel through the air, to set her parents at ease. A new life of psychics and vampires, and she couldn't have bumped into one telepath. Hypnotist. Whatever.

"I packed my meds and everything, and the guys know what to do."

Don't ask questions, don't ask questions.......

"These....guys"

Dammit

"Honey, I'm confused, how did you meet them again?" She didn't wait for an answer, continuing in one forceful breath, "Mrs Xiao said she saw you with some...people. They hit her mailbox with their van. Are they...musicians? We know you've got a good head on your shoulders, your father and I, but after that whole mess with Todd and his Mexican friends-"

"MOM! Mexican Funeral-"

"It's just that you don't need any more stress in your life! Darling, you know there are just some things that aren't a good idea for you right now, what with..."

The tactful pause, the polite silence. Oh, how she knew it well. 

"Mom, I'm sick. Not dying. You can say it."

Another pause. And then her mom's voice changed. A tired, coaxing voice, the one used by a mother at the side of a young Amanda's hospital bed. Back when all this shit started. Quiet notes of loving fear behind soothing words. 

"Your father and I...we've done the best we could, when Todd got sick, and then when you had your first...spell. We helped with the house, we've tried to be there for you. We just want you to be safe! Things have been alright, haven't they? Your prescription seems to be working, and your brother said he's been helping out around the place and making sure you have what you need. Is there something else? Are you mad at us? I know we haven't been able to get away to visit often enough. I can try to get a day off work! We can spend the weekend together. You don't have to prove anything..."

God. How could she respond to this without sounding like a complete asshole? How could she make her understand? That the house is the most boring, well meaning prison imaginable? Worse, that the walls had slowly started to mold to her shape, growing as familiar as self pitying silence. It wasn't just the screaming fits, or loud drums, that had driven the last of her friends away. Shit, it took a yellow psychic detective and a brick smashed through her window to make her remember that she could walk a block to the store! Todd wasn't the only one changed, the only one who was suffocating before all of this beautiful weirdness. She can't let herself go back, she can't be that person again, can't die in that house, can't lose this, lose them, they-

A hand on her shoulder was the first sign she had that the boys had returned. Starting, Amanda looked up the arm and found Cross's eyes on her. Direct, matter of fact. The way he seemed to respond to most things. He was the first to step up to her before, as well, while she was screaming on the pavement with imaginary bloody hands. Held out his own hands, took her pain. "You're not going to have to worry about that shit any more." He had said it like he was delivering a fact. She saw that same consistency now. No pity, though he obviously must have felt her wigging out in the parking lot. Just steady contact. 

Vogel, just to the left, was less still. His head was tilted, like he had caught the scent of something on the wind. He was near vibrating, his hands tapping a quick rhythm against his thigh as he shifted his feet. Ready to react, to burst, to do something. Do something in response to her pain. Like she was already part of his pack, part of his family. 

On the right was Gripps. His smile was soft, but his eyes seemed tight. He looked at Amanda the way a kindred spirit looks, like another sick kid passing Amanda at the hospital. Someone who understood, not just pain, but the isolation that comes with it. She wondered, suddenly, who Gripps might have hurt in the process of becoming himself. What relationships had been strained or cut. Before, when that idiot military guy had grabbed her, Gripps had shown a different kind of understanding. “We see you. Don't think we don't.” When it was directed at the musclehead it had sounded like a threat. Now...

And Martin. He stood behind the group. Detached, but not actually distant. His gaze was impassive, but his stillness seemed full of intent. It reminded her of the casual way he called her "Drummer" and tossed her a jacket earlier in the day, like he hadn't just invited her into his life. Like he hadn't just marked her as one of the group. The leather had been soft, and had fit well for something they just happened to have lying around…

Surrounding her. Witnessing her, and not leaving. Her boys. 

“...Amanda?”

Amanda dropped her phone, scrambling as she shouted toward the speaker. 

“Sorry! Sorry, Mom, spaced out."

Amanda wiped dirt and grease off of her phone, and the Rowdies' posture eased. A collective breath. 

"I love you, Mom, you and Dad. You know that. I have to do this for a while. I'll call you on Monday, alright?”

"Are you sur-"

“I am. I promise. Talk to you soon."

 

 

*******************************************************  
Question #2: How was food going to work?  
*******************************************************

Human beings are built to take in details around them. It's survival, like a prehistoric necessity. The more information they have, the more likely they are to spot danger or find resources. It makes for pretty awkward situations nowadays. Getting distracted by the game on a tv screen at the bar you're at with your date. Comforting a crying friend and noticing that their breath stinks or they have deodorant stains on their shirt. Squeaky shoes at a funeral. Amanda herself can remember a few times twitching and shaking on the bathroom floor, literally experiencing the agony of being shot or electrocuted or stabbed, and still registering somewhere in her mind that the grout in the tile had gotten grody and she really needed to sweep. That's just how it is. Humans take in information, accept it, and adapt. Amanda's whole life is now one big X-files musical number, but she's flexible. She rolls with it. 

Why, then, were the details of Martin eating a slice of pie causing her brain to short circuit?

They were all sitting in one of those fast food places off the side of the road. You know, plastic seats and even more plastic expressions on the employees behind the counter. She didn't even know which chain it was. She was too busy looking at Martin using a fork to carefully capture all of the crumbs from his sugary dessert. Cross and Vogel were pouring rivers of ketchup over their fry haul, and Gripps slurped one of those orange drinks out of a bright paper cup. Martin wiped his mouth with a gentle pat of his napkin. Amanda's eye twitched. 

It seemed so.....normal? Ok, it's not like she thought they were wild. Not like that. But she just hadn't actually thought about them eating. It felt so mundane. And, honestly, Amanda had been half convinced that they lived just off of that weird, sparkling emotion juice that came from people like her and Dirk. Om nom nom. It had been over 24 hours now since she had left with them, and they hadn't slowed down. Until now. 

Vogel bumped Amanda's shoulder and offered her a fry and a wide grin. She took both, returning the smile and returning to her own, steadily colder, meal. 

She wondered how it worked. They obviously didn't need to eat a lot, was this stop just for her? How long could they go without eating? That must have been weird growing up... Could they live just off of her attacks? How often? Maybe she could time the gap betwee-

"I ain't gonna perform a trick, if you're waiting."

Amanda didn't realize she had started staring until Martin spoke. 

"Sorry.......I guess I'm just curious."

Martin took another bite, chewing slowly. His gaze was open, expectant, and she took that as permission to continue. 

"I guess it's just weird, is all. Seeing you guys eat. I mean, how does it work? Your emotion zappy thing and food?"

"Don't know, never bothered with it. We feel like eating sometimes."

"It's so different, though! It's almost like photosynthesis, with plants. You guys just soak up cosmic stuff around you. Don't you ever want to find out how? Understand it? We could do an experiment, I could help, I could get upset and...."

Amanda didn't understand why everyone at the table had suddenly stiffened. Gripps put down his drink, Cross's hand flexed a moment as he reached for a fry. 

"No head shrink's making me tick!" Vogel's grin was gone. Gripps shook his head sharply in the young man's direction. A memory came to the front of Amanda's mind, Martin facing off against that balding CIA guy. Talking about taking them back….about putting them in cages. 

"Shit, dude! I'm sorry! No,no. No head shrinks here. Sorry, I'm hermit girl, I haven't gotten out much. Put my foot in it, huh?"

Martin set down his fork. All heads turned his way. With a slow deliberation, he spoke to Amanda. 

"We're not lab rats.” A pause. “And you're no snack."

His piece said, he went back to finishing his pie. 

Vogel's smile flooded back as quickly as it had fled, and just like that the conversation shifted, her transgression forgotten. "I want to be a plant! I'd have leaves and spikes and stuff."

"Thorns, man!" Cross and Vogel poked each other with the now cold French fries, arguing about baddass spiky flowers. 

"Sunflowers. I'd be all shiny, waving up high." Gripps' eyes were slightly closed, he looked far away. 

Martin grunted, not really looking up. A few moments later..."Poinsettias. Those Christmasy ones." 

He stole a pickle off of Amanda's tray. She beamed at him.

 

 

*******************************************************  
Question 3: So…..is privacy not a thing now?  
*******************************************************

“Cross, I swear to god, I will slap you upside the head with whatever is left of that bat if you don’t stop whining.”

Said surly vampire’s response was a petulant sort of growl as he gripped the jagged piece of wood closer to his chest. 

The Beast lumbered on, chewing up the miles on some empty stretch of highway in a place far from her native Washington. Ohio. No, Pennsylvania. 

It's not like the Rowdies had much in the way of privacy or personal space, you know? Sure, they don't talk much. But it's a small van. The odd bad dream, a healthy level of flatulence. Even the more quiet, unspoken things. The look on Gripps face whenever they go down this one shady street in Richmond and slowly drive by a particular, cozy looking house. The scratches she saw on Cross's arms when Farah and the group finally got to them in Blackwing, each locked in separate, tiny rooms. She’s shared things with these guys. They’ve grown closer even in the couple of months she’s known them. But some days..

A heavily booted foot shoved Amanda out of the way as Vogel slouched down in his seat and stretched his legs as far as they could go. A sharp kick to his shins later, and suddenly she was engaged in a backseat brawl that would have put little Amanda and Todd to shame on long family road trips. A flailing limb hit Gripps in the side, not that Amanda would ever own up to the deed, and at the look on his face both fighters retreated to their sullen corners. 

Great, now, Vogel was going to sulk for hours. What was up with the guys??? Cross was still hung up from yesterday when his favorite baseball bat splintered as they trashed this old, abandoned warehouse. Vogel had been picking a fight with everyone the past couple of days. He whined and complained about the lumpy ground at their campsite all last night, and Amanda had already been struggling to sleep. Gripps just kept dropping into these really mopey moods. Staring out the window like a tragic Victorian lady. 

The van ran swerved around a blown out tire in the middle of the road, causing Amanda to crash into the side wall and grab some hanging chains for support. 

“What the fuck,Martin?”

A silent, solitary middle finger was the only answer she got. And this fucking guy…... 

She felt achey all over, and there was a bit of a pang in her lower stomach. God, she would kill someone for a hamburger and a chance to stretch her legs and get out of this cramped van. If it meant throwing Vogel out the window she could only consider it a bonus. 

With great timing, Vogel started tapping out an annoying little rhythm with his foot. 

OK, murder was too good for the little brat. She should drop him in that rich dead guy's death maze thingy and see how he handled himself. See if her and Farah would come running with a gun and a fire extinguisher to get him out. 

The tapping increased in tempo. Martin turned up the volume on his music. 

God!! What was even happening right now? Had she travelled back in time to her family’s Grand Canyon vacation without realizing it?

It all seemed so easy, when she first joined the Rowdies. Here’s a jacket, there’s a cult of body swapping psychos, let’s go take on the world. Then there was the whole “the CIA is out to get us” portion of the relationship….ok, so it had never exactly been simple with these guys. But it all fit. One messed up, housebound hallucinating chic and her 4 magic getaway drivers. It somehow all worked. 

Except right now it wasn’t. And yeah, Amanda could handle it when people were being jerks. She was pretty used to asshole band members and flaky former friends. Even her cool big brother turned out to be a bit of a lying scumbag with a huge guilt trip….

Somehow, though, these guys and their beat up van had smashed through all of her usual punk rock cynicism. To be fair, smashing things seemed to be their department. But they were kind. Really kind, and honest, and joyful in a savagely unrelenting way. And if Amanda had done something to screw up the one good thing that had happened to her in years...If she was somehow pushing them away, or not being cool enough…..

“It’s broken.”

Amanda could see through her slightly misty gaze that Cross was still staring down at the handle of his bat. No, staring through it. Eyes kinda unfocused. Suddenly as sad as he had been pissed off 10 minutes ago.

“Why’s it all feel broken?”

“I dunno.” Her eyes were properly tearing up at this point. What was wrong with her?? “The past couple of days have been kind of shit, huh? I’m sorry, dude, I’ve been a jerk.”

Gripps sniffed a short affirmation and Vogel, not looking up from his childish huddle in the corner, gently elbowed Cross in the side. 

The rock song that was playing whined out to a final, long guitar note, and just then Amanda could hear a wheezy, snuffling noise, like a horse with peanut butter on its nose or an aging old dog who'd gone up too many stairs. 

It was coming from….

“Martin?”

The snuffling got louder, and, yeah, he wasn’t meeting her eye in the rearview mirror, but it definitely sounded like Martin was. Like he was.

“Are you...crying?”

The sounds took on a slightly higher pitch, punctuated by some heavier, loud breaths. Martin messily cleared his throat.

“It's just…” sniff, “you're all…”

“ROWDIES ARE FAMILY” Gripps wailed, and everything swerved a bit to the side as Martin jolted. 

Then the van melted.

Everyone slid into a heap in the back of the van and started outright crying, except for Martin, who wasn't really looking where he was going as his glasses were removed and he was wiping at his eyes with his leather sleeve.

Amanda and Gripps were hugging it out, Gripps letting out this high pitched keening sound that went right through her skull. Cross was still holding that damn bat, but was now cradling both it and Vogel's head like he was never going to let go. 

What the fuck was going on with all of them?

Even as she was crying, Amanda was confused. All of their emotions were dialed up to, like, 10,000. Was this some kind of weird, psychic vampire feedback loop? They seemed as freaked out as she was, but also as sad and pissed off as she was, was she messing up their mojo? It made no sense, it had been ages since Blackwing, she'd been riding with them now for, like, 3 weeks with nothing hinky happening befo-

Oh.

“Uh...guys?”

Amanda tried to get their attention from her muffled place by Gripp's shoulder. Cross finally released Vogel from his rather weepy headlock.

“Uh…..what day is it? You know…. of the month?” 

Blank, watery stares met her question. 

“Now, don't freak out, but I think we're all a little…. hormonal? Right now? As in…..”

Her face couldn't get much redder.

A beat.

Two beats.

A snort from Cross prompted a pretty shrill, giggled outburst from Vogel. And then the entire van started shaking. It was like a lingering, brewing storm had finally broke, bringing with it a downpour that washed everything clean. Amanda, vibrating from her earlier tears, looked at her friend's howling forms and gave way to hysteria herself. 

Oh, these guys. Oh god, these stupid, immature assholes!

“Guess we're all a bunch of regular prima donnas!” Martin was slapping the steering wheel in between wheezing laughter. 

Gripps looked like he was caught in a spell, mouth frozen and eyes closed in a near breathless smile as he shook and weakly patted Vogel's head. His friend was busy acting out his dramatic rendition of a diva, holding his hand in a coquettish parody in front of his mouth, fainted over Gripp's knee. “Donna! Oh, Donna!! Ha!!!” His cheeks were still pretty pink. 

Cross seemed to be in fight for jovial dominance with Martin, who's laugh had now burst out into a full, bellowing, chortle. If that was even a thing. Each exclamation bounced and echoed after the other, growing louder and more forceful until they sounded more like shouts, like fierce war cries. Or like a pair of stubborn asses who didn't know how to back down. 

Her stomach hurt now just from cackling, her own wild laughter joining the mess if the van. 

The dorks. 

If Amanda was anything like Dirk, she would have thought then that the universe was providing. She spotted a sign through the van's front window, and got an awful idea.

“I don't know about you guys, but I could definitely go for some chocolate right now."

“CHOCOLATE!” Vogel echoed back. 

Amanda's smile was cheerful, but her watery eyes had sharks lurking beneath the surface.

"I could also definitely do with some mayhem….”

The look on Martin's face through the dashboard mirror was absolutely feral. 

“Sounds like we have ourselves a trip!”

“CHOCOLATE!"

The chant was picked up and carried down the highway.

“CHOCOLATE! CHOCOLATE! CHOCOLATE!”

 

 

Many hours later, the lights of Times Square nearly trembled as they shone on the faces of these same chanting marauders running full pelt out of M&M World. They were seen off by a group of overly flustered store employees doing their best to appear firm, but mostly just weakly flapping their arms as they gestured towards the door and hoped the leather clad tornado of destruction would vacate the premise.

Cross shook his head and whooped as he ran, shedding small multicolor dots from the folds of his jacket. It had been his idea to sit under one of the giant walls of candy dispensers in the store and “let ‘em rip!” He didn't quite seem to understand that one usually pays for the candy that was displayed on the wall. It seemed easier to get him to leave than to argue the point. 

Both passers-by and a giant blue chocolate creature on a billboard stared disapprovingly down at the pair of Gripps and Vogel, both of whom had liberated some candy on their way out. Cars honked their horns and tourists groped in their pockets for phones. The would be photographers were greeted with peanut M&M’s to the face. 

Amanda made it out of the store with a few discreetly hidden treats herself. Smiling winningly at the shell shocked vacationing families and, shoving a few bills into the hand of the nearest employee, she turned to see Martin, charging ahead of the gang and holding a bag of mega-sized candy like it was a lion cub on Pride Rock. Gripps and Vogel continued their one sided game of candy catch with bystanders, and Cross…. was somehow wearing a new, bright green t-shirt with some kind of face on it and posing for a selfie with this terrifying looking Elmo character. The police officer nearby was crossing the square towards them, hands reaching for her walkie talkie.

Oh man. They were never going to be able to step foot in this state ever again.

Well, New York was overrated anyway. 

She dodged a traffic cone and tried to keep up.


End file.
